Visionary Picks Drawn from the Same DNA as Strictly Modern: Cult Guide

Dir: Charley Chase

A young married couple volunteer to take charge of several orphans after the asylum has burned down. Of course they find their hands full with their troublesome charges.

Dir: William A. Seiter

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of In and Out perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: William A. Seiter

The hero, jilted by his best girl, tries various methods of getting rid of life, but is frustrated at every turn. Finally he lands in jail and is noticed by a pretty philanthropist who gives him the position of butler in her home. After various amusing incidents in connection with a call by one of the girl's admirers, the butler suddenly finds himself heir to a million dollars and wins his benefactress for his wife.

Dir: William A. Seiter

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of He Did and He Didn't perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A young couple quarrel and make-up and quarrel again and it is here where they determine to save the scandal of divorce by placing a white tape through the house to divide it into two parts, each section of which will be exclusively sacred to the other. In the meantime, an almost invisible Cupid hovers about trying to placate them and a little Mephisto with a pitchfork tries to prod the couple along to more troubles.

Dir: F. Martin Thornton

In Paris an orphan cartoonist loves a man with a mad wife, who dies in time to prevent her marriage to a jilted Comte.

Dir: Maurice Elvey

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Why Divorce? perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A lady marries a horse trainer but withholds herself until her crippled brother is cured.

Dir: William A. Seiter

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: William A. Seiter

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Flame perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: William A. Seiter

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.